Isabelle Trowler, left, and Lyn Romeo, chief social workers for children and adults, respectively. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Two weeks ago today, there was general astonishment when David Cameron demanded an ovation for social workers – "a noble and vital calling" – in his speech at the Conservative party conference. Only the armed forces were favoured similarly. Was this some kind of watershed for a profession that has grown accustomed to being scapegoated and vilified?

Who will stand up for social work now? Step forward England's newly appointed twin chief social workers, Isabelle Trowler for children and families and Lyn Romeo for adults. Six weeks into their roles, they are still feeling their way and working out how they relate to their respective Whitehall departments and to each other. But it is already clear that no one should expect them to be uncritical cheerleaders for the profession.

Trowler says: "When you hear the details of some of these stories [about child deaths] how can you be anything but appalled? I am appalled. It's an entirely appropriate emotional response for people to have."

Excellent practice

While it is true that there is much excellent practice, she adds, and that the high-profile failures represent only a tiny proportion of social workers' total workloads, "we have to acknowledge that there are things that need to change and I don't think we should be crowing too much when there are things to be done".

Trowler's job has the higher profile, against the backdrop of the seemingly relentless stream of tragedies, but it is arguably Romeo who has the tougher challenge. Because of the level of political and public concern, Trowler has the benefit of initiatives such as the Frontline scheme to attract high-calibre graduates into children's social work and she will have the ear of ministers. She has already sat down with the education secretary, Michael Gove, "a couple of times", whereas Romeo has yet to meet the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

Romeo acknowledges that work with adults has been "sometimes in the shadows" and talks of it needing "rebirth" and "a new dawn". The irony, she points out, is that while social work has lost definition within the Department of Health, its values and practice have plainly been key influences on the development of the department's approach to social care as a whole.

"My challenge is to bring back into sharper relief the role that social workers have in social care for adults," she says, citing the care bill now before parliament as an immediate target. "That means being clearer, mainly through regulations and guidance [which will flesh out the bill] as to where social workers can make a real difference, where they add value, where you need social work input in particular areas."

If Romeo sounds frustrated at the status currently accorded social work in the health department, Trowler is surprisingly positive about the hearing its gets in the Department for Education – often assumed to have little interest in the children's service side of its brief.

She has, she says, been delighted by the enthusiasm of a team of more than 100 people in the department, who focus on children's services. "It's an absolute joy for me to have that skill, that history, that knowledge to draw on." Admitting that she herself arrived having heard that children's services was seen as an add-on, she insists: "I am not getting that impression at all. It's just not the case."

The role of chief social worker was recommended in the 2011 Munro review of child protection to give the profession "greater visibility and voice". The government advertised it as a single post, but failed to appoint, and then created two jobs.

Although Trowler and Romeo physically sit in different parts of Whitehall, together they represent one "virtual" office that will have one website and one email gateway.

The wider social work community was unhappy at the abandonment of the plan for a single role, fearing dilution of its potential influence. But the appointees are sure that two heads will be better than one.

"The way that [services] are organised means that social workers are doing very different things in very different contexts and in very different systems," says Trowler. "I think that difference has to be brought to the table. The purpose of this office is not to sing about how great social work is, but to focus on improving services for familes and for vulnerable people."

Romeo argues that the separation of posts will enable work with adults to make its distinctive voice heard. "It's an added bonus that there are two of us," she says. "I think it's very good for social work as a whole."

The two women have contrasting backgrounds. Romeo, 58, qualified in social work in her native Australia and started work in Britain in 1981, initially in Leeds and Bradford. After a spell with the former Social Services Inspectorate, she joined Camden council, in north London, where she became assistant director for adult social care and joint commissioning.

Trowler, 46, qualified at the LSE and worked for a variety of voluntary and statutory bodies, most notably Kensington and Chelsea, and Hackney councils, in London. It was at Hackney, where she became assistant director for children's social care, that she played a key role in developing the so-called "Hackney model" of children's services, known as Reclaiming Social Work, creating small teams each operating under a consultant social worker and each with dedicated administrative support. She then co-founded a consultancy to promote the concept more widely.

In conversation, Trowler avoids referencing the Hackney model (or Frontline, of which she says only that it is a helpful pilot that will have interesting results). Instead, she talks of giving social workers more time to reflect upon and discuss their practice and decision-making; of the value of more than one pair of eyes on visits to families under pressure; and of freeing up the skills of experienced professionals currently tied down in what she describes as "watching" others.

Romeo, who will be flying the flag for the joint office at the annual National Children and Adult Services conference, which begins in Harrogate stresses the growing importance of "asset-based" social work, or building communities' self-reliance, which many see as a return to a key aspect of practice in the 1970s, and of the imperative for more integrated working across social care, health and housing.

Such integration makes it vital that social workers find their voice and the confidence to hold their own in multi-disciplinary discussions, Romeo and Trowler agree. "Mental health is a good example of where social work has developed that confidence," Romeo says. "We have got to get that in all settings."

Trowler adds: "The decisions that social workers make are not as simple as saying: 'Yes, this is a fracture'; they're much more complex than that. They have to think about what's going on in the whole family and build a picture of the likely risk to the child. They must have that overview; they have the statutory responsibility for these cases. Inevitably, some social workers have the confidence to do that, but others do not. What we have to do for them is build the support they need to enable them to do this amazingly important job."